Awoke to a beautiful Saturday morning! Again sunny skies and temps in the mid 40's. Being a creature of habit, same routine as before with a stop at the GH for the volcano and a cappuccino and then back home to wait for my lady to arise. Wonder if "arise" is not the correct word as it makes her sound like a vampire. :) Well, anyways she is up and ready to go by 1.

Took the time to do a little research on the internet and found a new restaurant (at least new for us) to try. Although I am a creature of habit, we do like to find new places to add to our list each visit. This place was highly recommended on Trip Advisor and was literally right around the corner from home. Van Kerkwijk, right on the Nes is an interesting café where the small menu changes daily and nightly and where the waiter or waitress who is usually one of the owners will sit down at your table and explain the choices to you. We were there for lunch and had a bowl of tomato soup with leeks which was incredible and a salad with all sorts of fresh veggies. We left very satisfied and vowed to return for dinner one evening.

A quick stop at the Gollem for Westmalle Dubbels and then to the Arendsnest for a couple of Dutch beers, think that we had something from de Molen but didn't include it in my notes.

Time to vape so the next stop was Paradox and again lucky to get one of the tables next to the Volcano. Still had enough bits and pieces of the various buds that I had collected so bought some black hashish to mix in. That definitely did the trick as after 2 bags of that cocktail I was clearly stoned as Mrs. Thai observed!

Time for a nice walk so over to Papeinland another of our favorite bars and one of those that lay claim to being one of the oldest in the city as it dates back to 1642 and has state monument status. Also famous for its apple pie which none other than Bill Clinton is a fan of! While we do also like the pie, for us the décor and location never cease to amaze us as it overlooks the bridge where the Prinsengracht and Brouwersgracht intersect. They also always have an Ij beer on tap and today it was Columbus which is one of our faves. Mostly filled with locals and a few tourists that wander by, it was quite lively today. We sat near the entrance and just took it all in trying to understand some of the animated conversation.

Getting on 7 pm now so decided to make our way back towards home and stopped by the Elfde Gebod on the Zeedijk, a true Belgian beer bar and another lovely old brown bar. Sat at the bar and had a couple of Maredsous Triples and met a nice couple from Maastricht who were in town for the weekend. We had a nice conversation and were recommending our favorite Belgian beers to each other and of course sampling them as well! So we drank more than our usual one or two at this stop. Also filled up on these heavy beers we really were not that hungry for food so we decided to skip a big dinner and opt for a bowl of soup somewhere. We bid farewell to our new friends and walked down the Zeedijk over to Nieuwemarkt. We remembered that the Berkede Schuster always had great soups on hand so that's where we went. Traditional pea soup was terrific as well as was the Breugem IPA from Zaandijk.

We should have been ready to call it a night but we were both still feeling quite energetic and it was a beautiful night that felt more like Autumn than December so we decided to check out the bluegrass band at Mulligans on the Amstel. The nice long walk sobered us up a bit and the only drinkable beer (at least for our palates) at Mulligans was the Guiness so we were safe there! The band was great and played the standards along with some classic Beatles tunes and some folk and country tunes mixed in. We stayed for both sets and left at around 1 am.

We made our way back towards the Dam taking the route up the Oudezijds Voorburgwal. Still surprisingly with some energy left (it was not a full moon) we decided to stop into our favorite after hours bar, the Buurvrouuw. Love this funky and quirky bar in the alley! They always play great music and serve IJ IPA on tap which is one of our faves as well. We stayed for a couple and then back home straight to bed for the end of another prefect day.